Question on the 8.0Beta Version

Davide Negri wrote:

Hello,

i have installed postgres 8.0 beta3 as a program on my pc on windows xp.
I have read on the installation note file that postgres server will not
run with administrative permissions. I have read on your forum that this
happened because i have installed the beta version: is it true that this
happen only with the beta version?

Don't you think that is evil run a service like a database with administrator
permissions ? I think this will remain true also in the final release.

When will you plan to release the production version?

When is ready, fortunatelly postgresql is not a "time to market" slave.

Regards
Gaetano Mendola

On Fri, 2004-10-22 at 00:59, Davide Negri wrote:

Hello,

i have installed postgres 8.0 beta3 as a program on my pc on windows
xp. I have read on the installation note file that postgres server
will not run with administrative permissions. I have read on your
forum that this happened because i have installed the beta version: is
it true that this happen only with the beta version? When will you
plan to release the production version?

I think you may have misunderstood the docs. PostgreSQL doesn't run
under any account that has machine admin / root privelages because that
makes any small security issue in postgresql into a root level exploit,
and that's a bad thing.

I have read on the installation note file that postgres server will not
run with administrative permissions. I have read on your forum that this
happened because i have installed the beta version: is it true that this
happen only with the beta version?

It is written by the core developers that "running postgres with admin
privileges" will never be possible. (at least with the official
sources)

It has been discussed in detail; with pro and cons and it was a very
informed decission.

You can read it wihtin the PSQL-Hackers list.

Harald

On Fri, 22 Oct 2004 08:59:56 +0200, Davide Negri
<davide.negri@zeropiu.it> wrote:

Hello,
i have installed postgres 8.0 beta3 as a program on my pc on windows xp. I
have read on the installation note file that postgres server will not run
with administrative permissions. I have read on your forum that this
happened because i have installed the beta version: is it true that this
happen only with the beta version? When will you plan to release the
production version?

Hello,
The fact that postgres cannot be run by Administrator is not a
"limitation" of the beta version. This is the intended behaviour
and i don't think that it would change. In UNIX, postgres
reacts the same way: it refuses to start when run by root
(root is the admin user) because it is a bad practice to start
services as root - for security reasons. This idea might be
unfamiliar for the windows users who are used to run
everything with admin rights...
(In fact, we are talking about a feature: a user does not need
to be administrator in order to run PostgreSQL).

Best wishes,
Adrian Maier